1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing method and apparatus, a print control method, a multimedia apparatus, and a computer-readable recording medium on which programs for executing the methods are recorded.
2. Description of the Related Art
MPEG Audio Layer 3 (MP3) and Windows Media Audio (WMA) files recently sold or used over the Internet contain various metadata using a tagging format, such as ID3 tags. If data is not contained in an MP3 or WMA file, a user can add the data. While listening to an audio/music file, such as MP3 or WMA audio/music files, a user can view lyrics of the audio/music file displayed on an LCD display. Sometimes, a user may wish to print the lyrics. In particular, if a user studies English using an MP3 or WMA audio file, the user may wish to extract the contents of the audio file and read the extracted contents while listening to the audio file.
Portable multimedia products recently released not only play music but also provide the capability to reproduce moving images, offer image viewers, and print images or texts. If images or texts can be printed, it is also possible to print multimedia meta information of an audio file.
A method of printing metadata contained in an audio file, which is a type of multimedia file, will now be described by way of example. There are several methods of printing lyrics of, for example, an audio file. One typical method involves searching for the lyrics on the interne. In this typical method, if a music file does not contain lyrics, a user searches for the lyrics on the Internet using a personal computer (PC), downloads the lyrics, and prints the lyrics using a printer.
FIG. 1A is a flowchart illustrating a conventional method of printing lyrics of an MP3 music file. Referring to FIG. 1A, lyrics of an MP3 music file are searched for on the Internet using a PC (operation 11). A lyrics file found is downloaded to the PC (operation 12). The lyrics file is read using a text editor that supports a print function (operation 13). The read lyrics file is printed using a printer connected to the PC (operation 14).
Another method can be used for a music file that contains lyrics as metadata. In this case, the music file is downloaded from an editor that supports parsing of the metadata and the music file is printed using a printer.
FIG. 1B is a flowchart illustrating another conventional method of printing lyrics of a music file. Referring to FIG. 1B, an audio file is read using an editor that can parse audio metadata (operation 21) and printed using a printer connected to a PC (operation 22).
As described above, to print lyrics of a song while listening to the song, a user has to search the Internet for data containing the lyrics of the song and print the data. Alternatively, if a music file includes metadata, the music file must be transferred to the PC, loaded to an editor on the PC, which can parse metadata, and printed.
However, such methods require a lot of processes. Those who are PC savvy may easily handle such processes. However, it is inconvenient and difficult for those who are not PC savvy to carry out such processes. Also, for printing, a printer driver must be installed in a PC.
Recently, the contents of audio files, such as MP3 and WMA files, have increasingly become fee-based content. When sold, these audio files already contain metadata containing basic information, such as title, artist, album, genre, year and lyrics. Therefore, there is no need for a user to input such information, and such fee-based contents are becoming more popular.
As cameras become more versatile, it is possible to print images or text pictures using a direct print function of a camera as well as manage image files. However, it is not possible to print other multimedia meta information.